Thunderhead Brewing

Awesome pizza from a fire brick oven! Great beer that is brewed there, I liked the apple wheat.

WE went there with a group of thirty and had a separate room so this is skewed a bit. Nevertheless, 3.00 Happy Hour Pints, with a great beer selection, decent pizza, and good service. This place is worth finding.

Beer — Great!
Food — Meh (WAY overpriced… Decent but WAY overpriced) $ 16 nachos should connect with you at a visceral level… just saying
Service — Angst and Judgy (Getting pissy about cold nachos and a beer I didn’t buy isn’t a good business model)

Great beer– I had the red ale. But my veggie pizza was soggy & undercooked & the pretzel was just pizza crust baked with a bit of butter

Having housemade rootbeer and Hula Hula pizza. Good service and always good experience here much looked forward to. Pizza is really good and will have that again. Rootbeer and CremeSoda both very good also.

I’m not a fan of any craft beer, but have heard it’s good here. I come to Thunderhead for the food! I would recommend the wood fired pizza, soft pretzels, artichoke dip, and salads. Sometimes the service is a little slow, but we usually only go on the weekend to sit back and enjoy the atmosphere. Thunderhead is at the top of my list of restaurants in Kearney.

A+ brews, pizza, and customer service. Will return again!

This pub is a great stop along I80 on any trip. They do a very good job with a large variety of beers. Their pilsner is very well done. Had a delicious seasonal doppel bock last night. The calzones are well done with a light crust. And the staff is very friendly.

It all depends on what you are looking for at dinner. If you want a 4 or 5 star meal with a dutiful wait staff, then this is not the place for you.
If you are looking for awesome micro brews made on site, plus delicious pizza and soft pretzels, this is your place. Service can morph between adequate to darn right terrible but the beer is top rate. If you are going to hang out and drink a couple beers, go upstairs to the German style brew hall. Pool, foosball, & music upstairs are fun as well.
Skip this place if you are in a hurry as it will only frustrate you. The locals who are friends with the waiter/​waitress get all the priority. God forbid you have an emergency here as your funeral may happen before the staff identifies the issue.

I like this place! A bit noisy for my tastes, but a cool crowd. Family-​friendly, based on the number of kids and non-​hipsters present.
It took only 1 dopplebock for my head to say «no more dopplebock!» But i really wanted just 1 more.
The pizza is thin crust, and had a nice crispy perimeter. I really wanted either green or kalamata olives, not those damn tasteless things on the menu. Alas, i chose dried ‘maters instead.
I’ll be back!

Great pizza and good beer. The thunder pizza was soooo good! Cheaper prices than the other breweries I visited on my Nebraska trip too. Nothing fancy and clearly a college feel to it. The twisty things for kids instead of typical crayons was fantasic. My son played with those things all the was to Omaha.

I am giving this one star. I came here with a group of customers and the bar tender decides to not only show but turn the volume up on the democratic debate. The y changed from the Cubs game and Dodgers game and claims there is nothing they can do. There was a group of young democrats upstairs. I won’t spend another dime at this establishment.

Awesome bar! Stopped in to get a few growlers of their root beer and cream soda. Ended up buying pint glasses and peach beer.
I would have loved to stay for a meal but we had to be on the road. The food looked wonderful!
Staff was wonderful! And super helpful!!!
I will be back for sure when we come back to town!

The thunder pie is my favorite. Order the oven pretzels too; they are amazing. The drinks and atmosphere never disappoint. Always a favorite.

On the way back to Omaha we happened by Kearney. We had recently stopped in Lexington to visit a winery on our cross state travels and using a prepaid wireless carrier I was in and out of service zones for much of the trip.
The atmosphere is warm and distant. Seems more like a place for college kids and a few travelers. I would say it contrasts some of my favorite places, but that is not a bad thing.
The beer was rather ‘meh’. After weekending in CO most beer would be along the same lines of under par.
I am glad I got to stop by and have another beer on a trip of many and hope that Thunderhead will come to Omaha.

This was a gem of a find in the middle of nowhere.
Actually, that’s not fair; coming from the east cost, I’m always impressed at how these little towns that seem disconnected from everything can have three or four awesome little places in all of them. Back east we have lots of little crap towns, but also very little going on in most of them.
The beer was 3.5−4 stars on Untappd. They were all enjoyable, and more interesting than some other breweries that are bigger and easier to find. Do yourself a favor and stop through here for some pizza and beer.
I just wish they had more stuff bottled to go, like some of their seasonals.

Unfortunately, didn’t get to taste the brews here, but did stop by for lunch and got some pizza and a pretzel. The pretzel and spicy mustard were excellent, the pizza was pretty good, just not the greatest I’ve had. Overall, not a bad place to stop by for lunch!

Thunderhead was the first of three breweries I visited while making the drive from Omaha to Western Nebraska. Upon entering, I noticed the art work that has always drawn me to their beers on prominent display throughout the establish. These included posters for the characters that represent their beers such as Leatherhead Red, Cropduster, and Cornstralker among others. Unfortunately, the rest of the place looked less like a tap room and more like an oddly laid out and defunct Italian restaurant. Never mind, I could easily look past the appearance for great beer and good food.
The menu was heavy on the pizza’s so we opted to build our own 12″ pie with pepperoni and green peppers in addition to a flight of five beers. First for the beers, the Cornstalker was very good and remains one of my favorites. I also enjoyed the Centennial Hefeweizen which had a nice crisp easy drinking taste. While none of the other beers were bad, none really stood out. Once the pizza arrived, we could tell it was undercooked. In the places where the crust was crisp, it was pretty good but most of it was just chewy. The pizza kind of like the beer was okay but not memorable.
Ultimately, details are what make a place good or great and Thunderhead seems to overlook those details. So while it is a solid option for a small college town brewpub, I’m not sure this place would achieve the same level of success in a more competitive beer market like the one in Omaha.

Driving back from Denver to Detroit, this was a glorious oasis. Fairly priced and brewed in house + the pizza was delish. I had the jalapeño beer and it was delicious. The best possible way to involve jalapeño in a beer, j believe.

Worth the trip to taste their brews. Guess we showed up at a bad time. Only one bartender handling the bar & floor, several keg taps not working right. I overheard the bartender complaining that the taps hadn’t been working right for a while. To really showcase their hard work, they should fix that. Loved their spiced cider from the cellar series & also nabbed some Medieval Scottish ale. Interesting, sour with a savory hint of worcestershire sauce. There is a menu but didn’t eat, maybe next time.